TRANSCENDENTAL AESTHETIC

The “Transcendental Aesthetic” studies the a priori elements of sensible perceptions.

The principal thesis of the “Transcendental Aesthetic” is that space and time
are pure forms of all our sensible representations of objects. In other words,
they are forms of the appearances of things rather than forms of things as they are in
themselves, and only as such subjective forms of representation can they yield
synthetic a priori cognition.

Pre-Newtonian philosophers, Newton, and Einstein on space and time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5mzvHrvMwg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-ZtaG7OqO8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gfg87ca0YwM
 Time and Space. Metaphysical exposition

Externality

“Space is not an empirical concept that has been drawn from outer experiences,” because “in order for certain
sensations to be related to something outside me . . . the representation of space must already be their
ground” (A 23/B 38)

I cannot not acquire my conception of space by induction from any number of experiences that I recognize as representations of
external objects, because in order to recognize one object as external to others, in the first place, I must already represent it as in a
different position in space from those others. And, in order to represent any object as external to myself I must already represent it as
in a different position in space from my own – all of which means that the representation of objects external to one another in space
presupposes a representation of space itself that cannot be empirically derived from representations of particular things in space. In
that sense, the representation of space must be the a priori form for the representation of particular objects in space.

We must have a priori representations of space and time that do not depend upon empirical intuitions of objects, because although we
cannot represent particular objects without representing space and time, we could represent space and time themselves without also
representing any particular objects in them (A 24/B 38–9, A 31/B 46).
 Time and Space. Metaphysical exposition (cont’d)

Pure Intuitions

In the third and fourth arguments of the metaphysical exposition of space, and the corresponding fourth and fifth arguments about
time, Kant tries to show that we necessarily represent space and time as singular, so that we must have a pure intuition of
each, since singular representations are intuitions. First, he argues that we always represent particular spaces and times only as
regions of a larger, surrounding space or time, and that we do so by delimiting such regions in the larger realm (A 25/B 39, A 31–2/B
47). We do not conceive of particular spaces and times as instances of the general concepts “space” and “time,” but rather
as parts of the larger individuals, space and time. This is enough to establish that our representations of space and time are
themselves pure intuitions, not just pure forms of intuition.
 Time and Space. Transcendental exposition
Geometry

“Geometry is a science that determines the properties of space synthetically and yet a priori. What then must the
representation of space be for such a cognition of it to be possible? It must originally be intuition. … But this
intuition must be encountered in us a priori, i.e. prior to all perception of an object, thus it must be pure, not
empirical intuition. For geometric propositions are all apodictic, i.e., combined with consciousness of their necessity.” (B
40–1)

The intuition on which geometry rests must be an a priori intuition, not an empirical one. Why? Because the synthetic
propositions of geometry are necessarily true. And something that is true with necessity could never be confirmed by merely empirical
or a posteriori intuitions.
Therefore, we must have a priori intuition of the form of space and of all possible objects in space for geometry even to be
possible.

Implication: No principle of geometry is analytic.

Like in his metaphysical exposition, Kant argues here that space and time can be neither properties of things in themselves nor relations of
those things to each other. They can only be “subjective condition[s] of sensibility” – space “merely the form of all appearances of
outer sense” (A 26/B 42) and time “nothing other than the form of inner sense, i.e., of the intuition of our self and our inner state” (A
33/B 49).

Space is the a priori form of outer sense.

Time is the a priori form of inner sense.
Concluding remark: autonomy and transcendental idealism

We can discover fundamental conditions of the possibility of our own experience to which the objects of our experience must conform, in
the way our mind works.

Sensibility and understanding, as two main faculties of the mind, contain “the constitutive principles a priori for the faculty of
cognition which presupposes THE AUTONOMY OF THE COGNIZING SUBJECT.

I am autonomous as a cognizing subject because I prescribe to Nature the rules and forms according to which I can have knowledge of it.

Not only objects must conform to the conditions of our cognition of them if we are to have success in coming to know them, but
we can actually impose such conformity to the conditions of our cognition upon them.

But this does NOT mean that without the universal forms of cognition nature simply does not exist. Transcendental idealism, which
defines the conditions of the possibility of our experience does not deny the existence of the objects of our cognition outside
our minds.
 CATEGORIES OF UNDERSTANDING

Understanding is a human capacity that is active. This capacity is paired with receptivity, which is passive and which has two
forms: time and space as inner and outer forms of intuition.

Category is a pure concept of the understanding. Something that can be predicated of a thing.

According to Kant, in order to relate to specific phenomena, categories must be applied to those phenomena
through TIME. The way this application is accomplished is called a SCHEMA.

Categories, as forms of appearance, are derived from the forms of judgment.

 SYNTHESIS

By synthesis, in its most general sense, I understand the act of putting different representations together,
and of grasping what is manifold in them in one [act of] knowledge. Such a synthesis is pure, if the
manifold is not empirical but is given a priori, as is the manifold in space and time. Before we can analyse our
representations, the representations must themselves be given, and therefore as regards content no concepts can
first arise by way of analysis.

This synthesis is the source of knowledge.

Pure a priori concepts, if such exist, cannot indeed contain anything empirical; yet, none the less, they can serve solely as
a priori conditions of a possible experience. Upon this ground alone can their objective reality rest.

“All humans must die” :

universal, affirmative,
categorical, and apodictic.“

“Some humans are learned” :

particular, affirmative,
categorical, assertory.

“If all humans must die, then none

can be immortal”: hypothetical
judgment linking two
categorical judgments (one
case universal, affirmative, and
apodictic, another universal,
negative, and apodictic.
 THE TRANSCENDENTAL DEDUCTION

“The transcendental deduction of all a priori concepts … has a principle toward which the entire investigation must be directed,
namely this: that they must be recognized as a priori conditions of the possibility of experiences (whether of the intuition
that is encountered in them, or of the thinking).
(A 93–4/B 126)

The deduction begins with a “preliminary reminder” of the argument, in which Kant includes a famous theory of “threefold
synthesis.” He argues here that there are three elements involved in all experience of objects:
First, we must sequentially “apprehend” several intuitions of an object (a “manifold of intuition”).

Every intuition contains in itself a manifold which can be represented as a manifold only in so far as the mind
distinguishes the time in the sequence of one impression upon another; for each representation, in so far
as it is contained in a single moment, can never be anything but absolute unity. In order that unity of intuition
may arise out of this manifold (as is required in the representation of space) it must first be run through, and
held together. This act I name the synthesis of apprehension because it is directed upon intuition,
which does indeed offer a manifold, but a manifold which can never be represented as a manifold,
and as contained in a single representation, save in virtue of such a synthesis.
Second, we must be able to “reproduce” earlier items in such a manifold as we apprehend the later ones, so that
we can even raise the question of whether the earlier ones represent something that is the same as that which the later
ones represent.

The synthesis of Reproduction in Imagination: It is a merely empirical law, that representations which have often
followed or accompanied one another finally become associated, and so are set in a relation whereby, even in the
absence of the object, one of these representations can, in accordance with a fixed rule, bring about a transition of
the mind to the other. But this law of reproduction presupposes that appearances are themselves actually
subject to such a rule, and that in the manifold of these representations a coexistence or sequence takes
place in conformity with certain rules. Otherwise our empirical imagination would never find opportunity for
exercise appropriate to its powers, and so would remain concealed within the mind as a dead and to us unknown
faculty. If cinnabar were sometimes red, sometimes black, sometimes light, sometimes heavy, if a man changed
sometimes into this and sometimes into that animal form, if the country on the longest day were sometimes covered
with fruit, sometimes with ice and snow, my empirical imagination would never find opportunity when representing
red colour to bring to mind heavy cinnabar.
Third, we must “recognize” the unity of the manifold under a concept. We must recognize that our several
intuitions constitute knowledge of a single object because it follows from some concept of the object that it must
have just the sorts of properties the manifold of intuitions represent it as having (The Synthesis of
Recognition in a Concept).

Our concept of a dog, for instance, can allow us to recognize that our several representations of a four-
legged shape, a barking sound, and a, well, doggy smell comprise the representation of a dog, because the concept
tells us that those sorts of properties go together in dogs (but not, say, cats).
 TRANSCENDENTAL APPERCEPTION

Any time I have any experience, I can also know that it is I who have that experience, and that knowing that
is equivalent to knowing that that experience belongs to the SAME SELF that has all my other experiences –
the self that is numerically identical throughout all my experiences:

“For the empirical consciousness which accompanies different representations is in itself diverse and without relation
to the identity of the subject. That relation comes about, not simply through my accompanying each
representation with consciousness, but only in so far as I conjoin one representation with another, and am
conscious of the synthesis of them. Only in so far, therefore, as I can unite a manifold of given
representations in one consciousness, is it possible for me to represent to my self the identity of the
consciousness in [i.e. throughout] these representations. In other words, the analytic unity of apperception is
possible only under the presupposition of a certain synthetic unity. The thought that the representations
given in intuition one and all belong to me, is therefore equivalent to the thought that I unite them in one self-
consciousness, or can at least so unite them; and although this thought is not itself the consciousness of the
synthesis of the representations, it presupposes the possibility of that synthesis. In other words, only in so far
as I can grasp the manifold of the representations in one consciousness, do I call them one and all mine. For
otherwise I should have as many-coloured and diverse a self as I have representations of which I am conscious to
myself.” (KRV, B133).

WHAT UNDERLIES ANY EXPERIENCE IS THE UNITY OF THE SELF.

The difference between inner sense and transcendental apperception:

“…the paradox which must have been obvious to everyone in our exposition of the form of inner sense: namely, that this
sense represents to consciousness even our own selves only as we appear to ourselves, not as we are in ourselves. For we intuit
ourselves only as we are inwardly affected, and this would seem to be contradictory, since we should then have to be in a
passive relation [of active affection] to ourselves. It is to avoid this contradiction that in systems of psychology inner sense,
which we have carefully distinguished from the faculty of apperception, is commonly regarded as being identical with it.”

Transcendental apperception (or the unity of representations in one consciousness) is NOT HOW I PERSONALLY FEEL. It is neither a feeling, not Cartesian
cogito, but a principle of unity of ideas in one consciousness.

“How the I that thinks can be distinct from the I that intuits itself … and yet, as being the same subject, can be identical with
the latter; and how, therefore, I can say: ‘I, as intelligence and thinking subject, know myself as an object that is thought, in so far
as I am likewise given to myself in intuition, but know myself, like other phenomena, only as I appear to myself, not as I am
to the understanding’. … If, then, we admit that we know objects only in so far as we are externally affected, we must also
recognise, as regards inner sense, that by means of it we intuit ourselves only as we are inwardly affected by ourselves; in other
words, that, so far as inner intuition is concerned, we know our own subject only as appearance, not as it is in itself.”

“On the other hand, in the transcendental synthesis of the manifold of representations in general, and therefore in the
synthetic original unity of apperception, I am conscious of myself, not as I appear to myself, nor as I am in myself, but only
that I am. This representation is a THOUGHT, not an INTUITION. ”
 apprehension

recognition transcendental apperception, or the unity of consciousness reproduction

NB: The Cartesian certainty about the unity of the self is based on the assumption that the self is a substance. It is the
ultimate warrant of knowledge. The ultimate reality from which the whole world is derived. For Kant, “I think” is simply
a particular idea – not a substance, but a principle – that accompanies any representation.

To know anything in space (for instance, a line), I must draw it, and thus synthetically bring into being a determinate
combination of the given manifold, so that the unity of this act is at the same time the unity of consciousness (as in the
concept of a line); and it is through this unity of consciousness that an object (a determinate space) is first known. The
synthetic unity of consciousness is, therefore, an objective condition of all knowledge.